Paranoid Android

I recently had an advert inserted into my LinkedIn feed for a service that promised it would create an AI-version of Coach Colin (that’s me). The pitch was that it allows coaches to work with more people, enable them to scale their unique coaching style.

You basically train the AI so that it can mimic your coaching, asking the questions that you would ask, giving the suggestions you would give. You can use it to work with clients who have fairly simple challenges, or to take them through the standard question sets that you tend to use, freeing you up to work with more complex client issues.

So you can use it to service lower value clients, saving the real face-to-face stuff for those with the big bucks! Fantastic, right?

Oh no, sorry, I mean ‘Horrific, right?’.

If you wanted to miss the point of coaching entirely, you surely couldn’t find a better way.

What makes coaching so powerful is the relationship between the coach and client. Studies into therapy have shown that it is the most important factor (at around 60%) influencing the likelihood of a successful outcome. It’s more important than the qualifications or the skill of the therapist. Way more important. It is generally accepted that this also applies coaching and other talking therapies and my experience supports this.

Now some might argue that you can have a relationship with an AI but it’s not going to be the same type of relationship as you have with another human. A relationship is not just about what you say to each other, it’s about how you feel, it’s about all the subtle visual, aural and kinetic cues you give each other, it’s about connections that work beyond our understating and beyond description.

As a coach, you hold the space for the client to explore themselves and their inner world, with you by their side on that journey. Sometimes, the coaching experience becomes otherworldly, it escapes the dimensions of space and time, and that’s where the magic happens. It’s a deeply human experience.

The thing is, you don’t know when that’s going to happen. It can sometimes happen really quickly, although more often it takes a while and several conversations before it starts to occur. And you never know where the coaching conversation will take you. You can be working with a client on some quiet superficial stuff when suddenly they open up and reveal a depth and complexity that they’ve been concealing from the world for ages.

You would never get there if you filtered people at the beginning because how people present themselves is misleading. And, as any coach will tell you, the ‘problem’ is never the problem.

So what your ‘Robo-Coach’ is offering is an ersatz version of the coaching experience. It’s kind of similar but deeply lacking in what makes the real thing the real thing. For example, coffee was scarce during WW2, so people used a chicory-based substitute called ‘Camp Coffee’ (innocent days back then!). If you’ve ever tried Camp Coffee, you’ll know exactly what I mean. It makes the cheapest instant coffee taste like nectar, and the best espresso like a supernatural experience.

So, no, I won’t be signing up for ‘Camp Coaching’. I won’t be replicating myself in an AI that essentially dehumanises something profoundly human, and pretends it’s progress. RoboColin is not coming to your screen anytime soon.

Computer Love

This is, however, an example of how AI is being applied carelessly and reductively.

A lot of what you do as a coach is to ask questions. You tend to use the same ones, and there is often a familiar progression. In a simple coaching environment, where the client is dealing with some pretty basic stuff, you can practically plan out different conversation paths, a sort of decision tree you can walk them through.

And, yes, you can put that into an AI and it will work for a certain set of clients dealing with a certain set of issues.

But that’s not coaching. Or, if it is, it’s the worst type. Because coaching is not just about questions, and especially not about ‘killer questions’ (despite some coaches wanting this to be the case so they can stroke their egos about how great they are).

It’s about listening. Really, deeply listening. And then responding.

But, of course, you can’t codify that. It’s basically freestyling by the coach, and it’s often described as a dance between coach and client. It’s part of that all-important relationship.

AI can’t do that. But it can formulaically take people down well-trodden paths. So it does that and that’s called coaching and we are encouraged to ignore the real stuff. Problem is, it might be able to deal with the ‘problem’ but it’s never going to get to the problem.

Look, a lot of conversations we have are formulaic. A lot of the work we do is also formulaic, with predictable patterns, limited variety and narrow scope. But that’s like the groundwork, it’s the foundations on which the really valuable stuff is built. If you stick that into an AI, then you’ll just get lots of foundations but very few useful buildings. And even fewer skyscrapers.

Every coach (well, the good ones) will tell you about a coaching session where they asked a question at the beginning and then the client took over. Sometimes, the client just talks, having a dialogue with themselves out loud. Sometimes, the client says nothing as the dialogue rages within. Often the client says ‘Thank you, that’s the best session ever’ and the coach is left sitting there wondering what they did. What they did was create the space for the client build their skyscraper and quietly support them doing it.

And they did that through the depth of the relationship, the quality of the listening and the profound connection that had been built with the client.

What the AI can do is something reductive, robotic, shallow and cold. Let’s not mistake that for something worth having.

Imperfect

Of course, this RoboCoach platform is not really aimed at me. It’s aimed at those coaches who are driven to be ‘successful’, who want to hit ‘six-figure earnings’ and reach as many people as possible with their special magic gift.

It’s aimed at the coaches who promise to fix your problem with their 10-step process or their six-month programme, or their 2-week ‘boot camp’. It’s aimed at the coaches with the glossy websites and the sharp headshots that show their gleaming teeth against some exotic backdrop - probably where they do their ‘exclusive high-achievement retreats’.

It’s for the coaches who present themselves of paragons of successful living, who live healthily, have a daily regime of self-care and self-development, who exercise regularly, read extensively, and manage their life to achieve perfect balance and harmony. They are totally sorted. They have completely got their shit together. And have the instagram feed to prove it. Because that’s what it takes to be a good coach. Allegedly.

By contrast, I’m a bad coach.

I have not got my shit together.

My body is not a temple.

I drink more alcohol than the recommended amount. Most days, in fact.

I don’t meditate every day. Or hardly ever.

I don’t journal regularly.

I don’t improve by 1% every day. Or week. Or month. In fact, some days I go backwards.

I don’t exercise enough.

I don’t do Yoga.

I eat too much chocolate and too many cakes and biscuits.

I don’t set myself goals.

I am not always working at self-improvement.

I shout at the television when Question Time is on.

I have occasional bouts of road-rage.

I sometimes judge people. Especially the idiots who think it’s OK to park on the pavement.

I don’t stick with things.

I sabotage myself with increasingly clever self-deceptions.

I sometimes get bored of reflecting.

I make ‘To Do’ lists and then mistake writing it down for getting it done.

I prevaricate in a spectacularly broad number of ways

I think going out and having a skinful is sometimes the solution to the problem. (And sometimes it is).

I am terrible at asking for help.

I don’t always practice what I preach. At times, I seem pathologically unable to follow my own advice, even though I know it’s right.

Sometimes, I just get so angry at the world I can barely speak.

Sometimes, I just want to tell everyone to eff off and leave me alone.

I’ve never got around to finishing my coaching accreditation.

I am a somewhat imperfect human being.

But I am a good listener. Man, can I listen.

I am stumbling through life like everyone else (yes, even those ‘supercoaches’ beneath their social media-friendly facade). Including you.

I’ve always struggled to develop my coaching activities because I can’t promise anything from my coaching. That’s not how it works. I don’t know if I can help you with whatever challenges you have. As a coach, my role is to help you find the answers that you already have within you but I don’t know if we will be successful because you have to do most of the work. So that’s a lot of uncertainty, and uncertainty doesn’t sell in today’s world.

But I can promise to listen. Without judgement, with complete focus on you, in service of helping you find a way forward.

I can do the bit AI will never be able to do. The bit that makes coaching special, the bit that opens to door to the magic.

So, if you fancy a damn good listening, get in touch. Let’s have a chat and see where it goes.

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

So as this mad year of chaos and uncertainty draws to close, before we plunge into another year of the same but probably more so, it only remains for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Oh, hang on, that’s not quite as cheery a sign off as I had intended. So let me leave you with a few suggestions on how to enjoy the holidays.

Turn off your phone, stop scrolling the endless feeds of misery and fear. Close the laptop and leave the messages to pile up in the ether. Go and talk to real people, your friends and family. Better still, go and listen to them. Tell them what they mean to you, hold them close and tell them you love them. Immerse yourself in the real world and cherish every moment of it. And laugh as much as you can.

That’s what I’ll be doing. And I’ll raise a glass to all of you, my readers, to thank you for your attention and the conversations that we’ve had during the year because I really appreciate both.

And let’s do it all again next year. Who knows, it might be even more fun.

Happy Holidays!